Hey all, I'm looking to upgrade the stock antenna for my armature/commercial vhf/uhf. It has a rather wide transmit/receive band so I'm not to sure if I should just stick with the stock antenna, or if anything out there offered as a strictly amateur antenna would be worth it.

The majority of channels used are on the municipal vhf, amateur uhf, marine and occasionally the frs/gmrs. I also often receive/scan the marine emergency channels when I'm out on my kayak as a cellphone backup for emergencies, and get a pretty decent receive range but being less roughly 2-3 fee above waterline, I could use any benefit I can get. Other then that, the stock ant has done a decent job, but I have intermittent receive and transmission on municipal vhf channels from the interior of my house with it, where my motorola ht1000 seems to get noticeably better performance.

Second, the Wouxun website calls the antenna a SMA-K, although I've only seen most antennas on ham sites advertised as only male or female, with no letter designation "k". A quick wiki shows "2.9 mm" as SMA-K designed VERY high frequency use in the several dozen ghz range??

You won't find any antenna that offers any sort of signal gain across so many bands.

Practically, you will will only find antennas that are designed to operate on 2m/70cm.

The biggest concern is avoiding heavy antennas that will place to much strain on the tiny SMC connector and perhaps cause permanent damage to the radio printed circuit board.

One cheap and easy way to improve 2m/70cm performance is to add a wire counterpoise. about 19 inches long with about an inch stripped bare and wrapped around the antenna base.

You will have to build antennas for specific bands along conventional lines. You can't beat physics, and there is no way to shrink a shack into a tiny cheap handheld radio.

A friendly reminder that it not legal to use amateur radios on other services like GMRS, Marine etc. Radios that are part 90 (commercial certification) may be used on both amateur and commercial and personal bands, with some other restrictions like power and antennas.

Look up the Discone antenna. They are available from a few manufacturers or you can build one.

Very wide band, not very portable, but there is no substitute for size and there's not a lot of antennas that are not horribly lossy and a have a very wide SWR bandwidth. Some of them are not suitable for transmitting, some of them are.

Thanks for the suggestions, after looking at the discone designs, I might consider one of those for a roof mounted scanner antenna!

Other then that though, I meant along the lines of a standard vertical screw in replacement that still allows "clip to hip" use, so yagi, discone etc. are not options. Wouxun seems to offer a "hi gain" accessories for their radios, but its not listed for that radio... although their website isnt exactly the best. But I was asking more like a Comet, or Diamond?

Of course they work. It's a hunk of wire used as a counterpoise. I have one on my HT. Most everyone around here has one hanging off their HT. Yes, they work.

Mine is 19" of RG-174 (it's flexy) with the last 1/4" stripped and a ring terminal crimped on the end. The ring terminal goes under the antenna and the antenna threads down and comes to a stop on it. If your antenna allows the outside threads to contact this ring (ground) the rest of it hangs down from there loosely. And now you have a dipole instead of a monopole.

If you want to make it really nice, a little heat shrink over the ring terminal shank and the loose end makes it look good.

For $31 I could build 31 of them and have change left over for McDonalds.

Second, would the length effect how well it works, in does it have to exactly match the upper antenna, or can it be slightly longer to accommodate its nonrigid shape, or shorter to just optimize a particular frequency set?

ps. that "rattail" seems to work via inductance, since it doesnt connect to the antenna electrically... I'm assuming the design you are referring to that connects via a ring at the antenna connection is far more effective?

ps. that "rattail" seems to work via inductance, since it doesnt connect to the antenna electrically... I'm assuming the design you are referring to that connects via a ring at the antenna connection is far more effective?

I've never used one that was inductively coupled so I can't say. Better coupling will give you better performance if that's the question.

Any improvement in your antenna system improves both receive and transmit.

Also, a longer antenna as your primary antenna will help a lot even though it makes the overall HT longer.

Most HT's use a stub of an antenna which is 5-7" long. Comet, Diamond and MFJ sell 1/4 wave antennas on 147/440 mHz that work better than the stubby ones.

I appreciate it, that Comet looks intriguing, especially when I found a picture of it twisted back onto itelf in a loop without a breakage! Pretty cheap too, enough to grab and test and not worry if theyres little improvement.

I use a Jetstream version, cheaper with the same published gain as the big boys. I dont recall the PN from memory (at work) but I had a great impovement on VHF from the stock on my UV5R. It is a little longer though. Let me know if you are interested, I can post the part number later.73 Dave KD8GEH

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